Hi,
On 2024-08-20 11:08, Simon McVittie wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Aug 2023 at 16:54:01 +0100, Simon McVittie wrote:
> > from the point of view of continued development of testing/unstable,
> > I would have hoped that packages in testing/unstable could safely
> > assume that they will run on at least the kernel from stable (or maybe
> > oldstable for a short time after a new stable release), following our
> > usual "skipping a release is unsupported" rule. Obviously if the buildds
> > are running on an oldoldstable kernel, any mips64el package that might
> > be used at compile-time or for build-time tests will be unable to make
> > that assumption.
>
> It's been about a year, so it seems like it's time to catch up on this.
>
> According to db.debian.org, we have these mips(64)el machines:
>
> - eberlin (porterbox, LS3A-RS780-1w (Quad Core Loongson 3A), Linux 4.19.249-2)
> - mipsel-manda-{04,05} (buildd, Quad Core Loongson 3A3000)
> - mipsel-osuosl-{01,02} (buildd, Rhino Labs UTM8)
> - mipsel-osuosl-{03,04,05} (buildd, Quad Core Loongson 3A3000)
>
> running these kernels and OSs (directly queried on the porterbox, taken
> from a semi-recent buildd log for the others):
>
> - eberlin:
> - 4.19.0-21-loongson-3 4.19.249-2 (Debian 10)
> - Debian 10 user-space
Correct.
> - mipsel-osuosl-{01,02}:
> - 4.19.0-21-octeon 4.19.249-2 (Debian 10)
> - Debian 11 user-space (guessed from sbuild version)
Correct.
> - mipsel-osuosl-{03,04}:
> - 6.1.0-23-loongson-3 6.1.99-1 (Debian 12)
> - presumably Debian 12 user-space (guessed from sbuild version)
Correct.
> - mipsel-osuosl-05:
> - 6.1.0-21-loongson-3 6.1.90-1 (Debian 12)
> - presumably Debian 12 user-space
The kernel version is wrong, it runs an up to date bookworm kernel.
> - mipsel-manda-{04,05}:
> - probably >= 5.10.0-22-loongson-3 (Debian 11)
> - probably >= Debian 11 user-space
>
> I was unable to find a recent build on mipsel-manda-{04,05} on
> buildd.debian.org: are they perhaps reserved for -security or something?
> During the most recent builds with public logs that I could find there
> (1-2 years ago), they appear to have been running 5.10.0-22-loongson-3
> (Debian 11 kernel) with what appears to be Debian 11 user-space, which
> presumably means that these two buildds do not suffer from the kernel
> issue that prevented mipsel-osuosl-{01,02} from being upgraded beyond a
> buster kernel, so hopefully they are running Debian 12 by now.
mipsel-manda-{04,05} are powered down for many months due to fan issues.
Unfortunately we have not been able to get someone looking at them. In
any case they should be upgradable to a Bookworm system without problem.
> However, this means that, 1 year into Debian 12's lifetime as stable, two
> of our official buildds for a release architecture are still running a
> Debian 10 kernel, with no security fixes beyond 2 years ago. Meanwhile,
> the porterbox that is an ordinary Debian developer's only opportunity to
> debug problems on this architecture is running the same outdated kernel,
> and also Debian 10 user-space. mips64el is not supported by Debian LTS or
> ELTS, so there is no channel that I'm aware of from which these machines
> could receive security fixes, even outside Debian itself.
>
> This worries me, and I think it should be a factor in decisions made by
> the release, security and DSA teams about whether mips64el is a candidate
> to be a release architecture in trixie.
>
> If the mips64el porting team and their hardware sponsors would like it
> to be treated as a potential release architecture, then I think it would
> be a good idea to prioritize either providing a newer kernel that can
> run successfully on the hardware that is used for Debian's official
> buildds, or replacing mipsel-osuosl-{01,02} with hardware that can run
> newer kernels successfully.
I don't think hardware sponsors are to blame here. They delivered 2
machines to replace the ones that can't upgraded. That was end of
October 2023, unfortunately we have not been able to get them racked.
All that said I am not sure how to make things progress.
Regards
Aurelien
--
Aurelien Jarno GPG: 4096R/1DDD8C9B
aurel...@aurel32.net http://aurel32.net
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